Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family" podcast with Steve Demme.  I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. How  are you today? 

Steve: I'm well. How are you? 

Scott: Good. My radio voice jumped right in there, right on time. 

Steve: We are going to talk about some interesting people today. Numbers 27 begins  with the daughters of Zelophehad. I don't know what that man's parents were thinking  when they named him Zelophehad.  

Steve: Let's pray. Father, thank You for each of these sons and daughters, each of  these people that we can learn from because these things, these journals of these  people were written for our admonition. 

Help us not only to understand what we're reading, but give us ears to hear what  you're saying to us so we can learn and apply it to our situation today. Every word of  God is inspired and profitable. Help us to take profit from our study today in Jesus'  name. Amen. 

Scott: Amen. 

Steve: Zelophehad had daughters whose names were Mahlah, Noah, oh, Noah. Why in  the world is a girl named Noah? Anyway, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. That was an  interesting family reunion when they all got together. 

Scott: I think you're making this up. 

Steve: What I thought was pretty interesting is they asked a question, and Moses  didn't know the answer, and so Moses brought their case before Jehovah. God said,  "These girls are right. They need to have an inheritance because their father died in  the wilderness, and he wasn't even among the company of those that were on the  wrong side." 

They were concerned that because their father had died his name would perish with  him, and so they asked for a possession, and God said they're right. That was  fascinating to me.  

12th verse, I sigh every time I read this. "Jehovah said to Moses, 'Go up into this  Mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. You  can't go there, but go up and take a look,'" and he did. Then He says, "And when  you've seen it, you're going to join your brother Aaron." 

Moses prayed, "Let Jehovah, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the  congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead  them out and bring them in, that the congregation of Jehovah may not be as sheep  that have no shepherd."  

His heart was still towards these people. God told him to take Joshua and lay his hand  upon him, which he did, and he stood before Eleazar. He was officially commissioned.  Joshua became the head. 

The 28th and the 29th chapters ae very readable. I don't think they require a lot of  commentary, but there's a whole bunch of offerings, daily offerings, monthly  offerings, Sabbath offerings, feast offerings. 

Then in the 29th chapter, you have the feast, or at least a holy convocation, where  they are going to blow the trumpets. I don't know what that would sound like, but  that sounds awesome to me to have all the priests with their big trumpets out there  or their shofars, and they would be blowing those trumpets. a great experience. This is followed lots of specific days and offerings to offer on those particular days  and a whole bunch of verses about this. On the second day, you do this. On the third  day, you do this, but the third day was less bulls. The fourth day was even less bulls. The days were increasing. The number of bulls and lambs and stuff were changing. Of  course, the math guy, I'm looking for a pattern in that, but there you go. Now when we come to the 30th chapter, it's all about vows, and vows were something  that Jesus talked about even in the sermon on the mount. It's really a question of  authority. If you have a woman living in her father's house, and she vows a vow, the  father could release her from it, but when she got married, it was different. Now if a woman makes a vow, it's up to her husband to see whether he'll release her  from it or not, this is very clearly spelled out.  

In the 31st chapter, avenge the Midianites. Moab and Midian were both in the  southeast corner of the Dead Sea. They're kind of across the Jordan from the  mainland of Palestine that Israel's going to inherit, and they had encountered the  Moabites and Midianites. They'd worked together. 

God says, "Before you go, I want you to avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites.  Then you're going to pass away. You're going to come up to me." Moses said, "OK."  He went to the tribes, and each tribe sent a thousand men armed for war.  I think it is really significant when you read, "They warred against Midian. They killed  the kings of Midian.” Then it says in the eighth verse, "And they also killed Balaam,  the son of Beor, with the sword."  

They took captive everybody else after they'd slain these people. When they came out  to meet Moses and Eleazar, Moses was furious. "Have you let the women live? What  are you thinking?” And this is what we referenced last week, "Behold, these on  Balaam's advice caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against Jehovah in the  incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of Jehovah." Balaam tried to curse them on the top of Peor, but that didn't work. God turned it  aside, and he ended up blessing them instead of cursing them, then Balaam must  have thought, "Well, I have another plan," and so he went to Balak. I'm reading  between the lines, but it was Balaam that said, "Send your women over there. That's  their weak spot," and they did and so Balaam died. 

32nd chapter. I call it the great assumption, and this happened a couple times with  these particular tribes. The people of Reuben and the people of Gad had a lot of  livestock, and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and they said, "Man,  why don't we stay here? We don't want to go across the Jordan." 

They went to Moses and they said, "What do you think? How about if we stay here?"  You know what they did? They pushed a button. They pushed a big button. Because  Moses said to them, "Shall your brothers go to the war?" 

He assumed that they were going to sit there twiddling their thumbs while the people  of Israel crossed the Jordan, and had to fight all these nations. Then he said, "Why will  you discourage the heart of the people of Israel? Your fathers did this when I sent  them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land." 

Moses, is back 38 years before now and reliving that experience because he never got  over what they did and why they had to spend 38 years in the wilderness because  these people were spooked by the members of the 11 guys that came back and gave  the bad report. 

Moses went on and on, and he talked all the way down to the 15th verse. "If you turn  away from following Him, He will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will  destroy all these people." Somehow the leaders of Reuben and Gad, took a deep  breath, and listened, without saying anything. 

They came near to him and said, "Look, here's what we're going to do. We're going to  build sheepfolds for our livestock, cities, for our little ones, but we will take up our  arms, and we'll go before the people of Israel until we have brought them safe in their  place. We will not return until everybody has gained their inheritance." Moses, took a deep breath and said, "Wow. OK. If you will do this, this will happen." I  thought, Moses is a human, and Moses thought he heard, "We would like to stay here.  We don't want to go over.” In his mind, he was back 38 years when this happened  before, and he even says in the 14th, 15th, verses, "You have risen in your father's  place, a brood of sinful men to increase still more the fierce anger of Jehovah."  He was upset. He was emotional. He was responding like he should have responded.  This one phrase came up, "But if you will not do so, be sure your sin will find you  out." That's the 23rd verse. 

This is the kind of truth that you pass on to your children. Be sure your sin will find  you out, so be honest. 

Scott: I was looking at that verse too. That same phrase struck me. I was like, "Wow.  Your sin will find you out.” Man, how many people has that struck down? Steve: I made a list one time of all the places in the Bible where people reaped what  they sowed, and that's the same thing. Because you don't sin without being affected  by it. Sin will find you out, and you will reap what you sow. At the end of that chapter,  we have the half tribe of Manasseh being added to Reuben and Gad. In the 33rd chapter, you have a record of all the places they stopped on their journey.  34th chapter, I'm moving through that because you can read that. I like the word  'when,' "When you enter the land of Canaan, they hadn't entered it yet, but he was  assuming that God was going to take the people in. 

When you enter the land, command the people of Israel, etc., etc. Then they talk  about all the borders, the northern border, the southern border, western, eastern border. They picked out men that would represent each of the tribes when they  assigned the borders. 

35th chapter, make sure that you take care of the Levites. The Levites were given their  places, and then the cities of refuge and how they worked. If somebody was  intentionally killed, or premeditated, is the language we use in our culture today, if  somebody intentionally set out to kill somebody, that's one thing, but if it was  unintentional, they flee to these cities, and it's all laid out. 

God knew these people, and He knew what they needed. He knew the Levites needed  property. He knew that there had to be cities of refuge on both sides of the Jordan. He knew because the blood, way down in the 33rd verse, He says, "You shall not  pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can  be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it except by the blood of the one  who shed it. 

"You shall not defile the land in which you live in the midst of which I dwell, for I,  Jehovah, dwell in the midst of the people of Israel." When I read that I think, how will  God ever take care of all the blood that has been shed in our land, innocent babies,  but He's aware. He was aware when Cain slew Abel. His blood was crying out from the  land. What a cry must be reaching heaven right now. 

We started this section in the 27th chapter with the daughters of Zelophehad, and  here they appear again. This time it was the leaders who had time to think about this,  and they said, "What if one of these daughters of Zelophehad marries a guy from the  tribe of Ephraim, and another one marries a guy from the tribe of Manasseh, and  another guy marries...well, whose land? 

"Because if you've given them the land as part of Manasseh, their tribe, well then what  happens if this other guy...?" Moses went to God. God says, "Here's what you do. Make  sure that they marry someone in their own tribe," and so they did. Thus ends the  book of Numbers. 

Now we come to one of my favorite books. All scripture is inspired and profitable and  all that, but I do like Deuteronomy. The title for this book, which I've covered in  previous podcasts is found in the 17th chapter of Deuteronomy, which we're going to  read in a couple weeks, it says in the instructions to the king right after he told him,  don't multiply silver, don't multiply gold, don't multiply horses getting from Egypt,  don't multiply wives." 

These are the three things the king is not supposed to do, but then it says here's what  you should do, “When you sit on the throne of your kingdom, you shall write a copy of  this law in a book out of that which is approved by the Levitical priests." That expression, "copy of this law" in the Septuagint, not in the Hebrew, so the  Hebrew was translated into the Septuagint in Greek, and in Greek, that copy of this  law is deutero nomos. Deutero would be a copy of, nomos or nomon would be the  law. It was a copy of this law, and that's where the title of the book of Deuteronomy  comes from. I always found that fascinating. 

Some people say Deuteronomy is another law. I don't see that, but it is a kind of  compilation of the previous books because we're going to read about things that you  can hear that we've already encountered in Exodus, in Leviticus, and in Numbers. This  is an overview compilation, and done in a way that's anointed. 

First verse, "These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in  the wilderness." I like to think of Deuteronomy as Moses' last words. Moses' sermon.  After walking with God for years and years, after spending so much time in His  presence on the mountain, in the tent of meeting, Moses, with all of his distilled  wisdom, he pours into the book of Deuteronomy. 

"It is 11-days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea". Then  in the sixth verse, "Jehovah said to us in Horeb, 'You've stayed long enough at this  mountain, turn and take your journey,'" and so they did. Then he reiterates what  happened with the spies. 

The 22nd verse, "After God had said, 'OK. Go up and take possession of the land,' and  then they, all of them, came near and said, 'Let us send men before us that they may  explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up  and the cities into which we shall come.' 

"The thing seemed good to me, and I took 12 men from you, one man from each  tribe." Then he goes on and explains what happened. We know what happened, they  brought back the evil report, and we're familiar with everything that we read in the  first chapter of Deuteronomy. 

Then in the second chapter of Deuteronomy, I thought that maybe I should comment  on this, but there's a bunch of people that have strange names and they're giants. It  says in the 10th verse, "The Emim, E-M-I-M, formerly lived there, a people great and  many, as tall as the Anakim, and they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites  call them Emim." These people are not new to us. 

They appeared in Genesis 14:5. If you remember, right before Abraham went and  rescued Lot and his children, but there was a group of kings that attacked a couple  more tribes, and they fought against the Emim and the Anakim and the Rephaim.  They defeated them, and then these other kings defeated them, and in the process,  they took Lot. 

Abraham went up with a couple hundred men, if I remember, 318 men, and he  rescued them. I thought, "These are like Goliath-type people. These are huge." Yet,  these people were defeated by the kings, and then Abraham defeated those kings.  Abraham was something. 

I looked online to see how far it was from Kadesh Barnea to the Brook Zered. This is  what they were supposed to do at the beginning. It's 50 miles. It's a two-week walk.  Instead, it took them 38 years. You could have a whole sermon on that. If we will obey God and do what he tells us, we can grow quickly, but if we're going to  sit there and continue to hold on to our former way of life and our sins, it's going to  take us 38 years to do what we could have done in two weeks.14th and 15th verses. "This, the time from our leaving Kadesh Barnea until we  crossed the Brook Zered was 38 years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of  war had perished from the camp as Jehovah had sworn to them. For indeed the hand  of Jehovah was against them to destroy them from the camp until they had perished." Then in the 20th of the verse, we get some more M people. “It is also counted as the  land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there, but the Ammonites called them  Zamzummim, a people great and many, as tall as the Anakin." 

"This day," it says in the 25th verse, "I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on  the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and  shall tremble and be in anguish because of you." Now this is what Moses writes. This  is what God said He was going to do, and we have a confirmation. I'm getting a little ahead of myself again, but you remember when we get to Joshua,  Rahab, she talks to the guys that snuck into this city, and she said, "We've heard  about you. We're all scared to death." That's exactly what God said He was going to do  in 23rd verse, and He did. 

Then we have the account of Sihon, which we've already walked through when we  were reading Numbers. Sihon is destroyed. In the beginning of the third chapter, we  have Og, the king of Bashan. His bed was made of iron. Nine cubits was its length,  four cubits its breadth. If a cubit's a foot and a half, that's over 13 feet long was its  length, and six feet its breadth. This was a big puppy. This was one of the Rephaim.  They were giants. 

If you looked at the giants, they scared you to death, but not if you're Caleb and  Joshua. They looked above the giants and saw God who's greater than Sihon, and He's  greater than Og. This is the beginning of several times we're going to read in the Bible  where God uses these giants and situations to encourage His people. Sihon, looked  big. Og looked big, and with God's help, they wiped them out. God continues to bring  this up by reading them, "Don't forget. You destroyed Sihon. You destroyed Og. They  were big. They were powerful. They were giants, but with my help, you took them  out." 

In the 21st and 22nd verses, "I commanded Joshua at that time, your eyes have seen  all that Jehovah your God has done to these two kings, so will Jehovah do to all the  kingdoms into which you are crossing. You shall not fear them for it is Jehovah, your  God, who fights for you." 

These were examples to show them, and he reminded Joshua, "Come on, you've seen  this. Don't forget. I can take care of anybody because I took care of these giants for  you, and I'll take care of all the other kingdoms that are across the land that you saw  before when you and Caleb went up there 40 years earlier." 

Pathos is the word that comes to me as I read Moses saying one more time, "Please,  let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and  Lebanon. But Jehovah was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. "And Jehovah said to me, 'Enough from you. Do not speak to me of this matter again.  

Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes westward and northward and  southward.'" I wish Moses could have gone up there to see that land and eastward. 6

God continued, "And look at it with your eyes for you shall not go over this Jordan,  but charge Joshua courage and strengthen him. He'll go over." Moses did not go over  then, but we know that he did appear with Elijah in the land with Jesus on the top of  the Mount of Transfiguration. OK, Scott, there. You've got 450 verses to comment on. Scott: That's a lot. I was struck by some of the parenthetical things, like that bit about  Og's bed. It says, "His bed is still there." It's almost like he knew some of the guys  reading this would, once they settled in the land, we're going to be like, "Hey, let's  take a vacation, honey, and go see that giant bed." It's like Todd Wilson and our  buddy taking his family to see the world's largest bottle of ketchup. Steve: Or get your homeschool family together in the promised land, and let's go see  Og's bed. That thing is huge. 

Scott: Some of the other ones where it's like when Moses says, "Oh, it was like took  however long to travel between these two places." It's as if he knew someone was  going to make maps to put in the back of your Bible someday. 

Steve: Can you imagine, though? 38 years to go what they could have traveled in 14  days. 

Scott: I wonder who was the first guy that realized that. They've been wandering this  whole way, and then like, "Wait a minute. That's all it was?" Anyway, sorry. My funny  bone's active this morning, I guess. 

Steve: Todd Wilson would have been able to run with you further on that one. Steve: I love reading this. I love studying it. I love learning from it. I think that's one of  the reasons that we need to keep journals, or at least have significant milestones in  our life recorded. When I first came to Christ, I was introduced to the gospel and I  responded, but it was several years after that when I felt like I really did business with  God. 

I said, "God, here we go. I'm going to serve You fully. I'm going to seek first Your  kingdom." Two things transpired, I didn't have a healthy tongue. I swore like a sailor,  and God took that away from me. I didn't even ask Him to do this for me. I changed. I was also drinking alcohol , and God took away the appetite. This is  something I can look back to like my Sihon and my Og and say, "God did something  for me. God changed me. He changed me from the inside out."  

I remember seeing somebody shortly thereafter, and they said a cuss word, and I  looked at them with shock. They looked at me with dismay, "Oh, what's wrong with  you?" I was almost covering my ears almost because it was so discordant. I didn't want  to hear it. I didn't want to say it. We all have Sihons and Ogs in our life that God has  delivered us from and things He has helped us through. 

We need to hold on to those so that when we look ahead of us and we see other  things that look pretty tough, we have to remind ourselves, "No, no, no. God took  care of Sihon. God took care of Og, and we did have that field trip to his bed, and so  we know." 

Scott: Nice. 

Steve: I think that's why we have to set up way-marks, to remember how far God has  brought us. He who began a good work in us will continue it and bring it to  completion. Amen.  

Father, thank You for Your word. Thank You for how You led these people. Our hearts  go out to them for their 38 years in the wilderness because of the disobedience. Yet,  You never gave up on them, and You continued to lead them, and You brought them  to this place. Here we are in Deuteronomy now, and Your wonderful servant Moses is  pouring out his years of experience and wisdom with You, and we take it in. Help us  to love Your word as much as we love You. In Jesus' name, amen. 

Scott: Amen. That's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the  Building Faith and Family podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the  show, email Steve at spdemme@Gmail.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.